The first effort of the king's new advisers was wiser and more prescient. Popularity among the Protestants in England and on the Continent was the object to which their views were directed. They sent to Holland Sir William Temple, an able and honest diplomatist, qualified to appreciate the elevated and patriotic views of the grand pensionary, John de Witt. Naturally favorable to the French alliance, which he had long sought and sustained, John de Witt had been rendered anxious by the progress of the power and ambition of Louis XIV. He desired to protect Europe against his invasions, by drawing closer that ancient union of the Protestant countries promoted of old at the instigation of Burleigh under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth. The treaty of the Triple Alliance, signed at the Hague on the 23d of January, 1668, engaged England, Sweden, and the United Provinces, to defend against France the weak monarchy of Spain. A secret article bound the allies to take up arms to restrain Louis XIV., and if possible to bring him back to the conditions of the peace of the Pyrenees. The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was the fruit of that prudent and wise policy. John de Witt and the Dutch were destined to pay dearly for their courageous initiative. "In the midst of all my prosperity in my campaigns of 1667," writes Louis XIV. in his memoirs, "neither England nor the Empire, convinced of the justice of my cause, offered any opposition, however much their interests were opposed to the rapidity of my conquests. On my way I found only my good, faithful, and old friends, the Hollanders, who, instead of interesting themselves in my good fortune as furnishing the foundation of their State, attempted to impose conditions on me and compel me to make peace. They even dared to employ threats in case I should refuse to accept their mediation. I confess that their insolence wounded me to the quick, and that I was tempted to risk what might happen to my conquests in the Spanish Netherlands, and to turn all my forces against that haughty and ungrateful nation. But having called prudence to my aid, I dissembled, and concluded a peace on honorable conditions, resolved to postpone the punishment of that perfidy to another occasion." {360}